Preparing for discharge

Welcome

We know that staying in hospital can be a stressful time both for you and for your loved ones. During your stay with us we will do our best to make you feel comfortable and receive the very best care and treatment from us.

Hospitals are the right place to be when you need care from specialist doctors and nurses when you are ill but spending more time in hospital than you need to can do more harm than good and make your recovery take longer.

Planning ahead for your discharge from hospital

It may sound strange now but from the moment you start your stay with us, we’re already thinking and planning for the day you are ready for discharge.

To avoid any unnecessary delays, we work closely with all our health and care partners in the community, including doctors, nurses, therapists, and social workers to plan your discharge.

Helpful questions to ask

You can also help us with that planning ahead by asking questions to the people who are caring for you. Questions such as:

• What’s my plan?
• When will I be discharged?
• What am I waiting for today? 
• What do I need to arrange for when I leave hospital?
• How can my friends and family support me when I leave hospital?

All our patients’ circumstances are different, and sometimes discharge isn’t as straightforward as we would all like. For example, your preferred place of discharge may not be ready or have any space available. If this happens, don’t worry, we’ll find you an alternative placement that can meet your needs until your preferred place becomes available, or your support at home is in place.

Winter pressures on the health and social care

You will have probably seen lots of stories in the news about how busy the NHS is. It’s true that our hospitals are extremely busy at the moment, but we want you to know that our dedication to caring for you remains the same and we’re doing everything we can to make sure everyone who needs hospital treatment gets it.

The NHS always faces more pressure in the winter but this year we’re under even more pressure because of COVID-19, made worse by the new Omicron variant, which spreads even faster. This not only means that we have more patients needing our care, but we also have more staff off work because they are isolating due to Covid-19.

These pressures don’t just impact the NHS, they also affect our colleagues who work in social care. They too have increased numbers of staff off work and are also having to manage similar winter pressures to what we see in hospital.

Being discharged to another care setting

You may need some extra short-term support to allow you to be discharged from hospital. If this is the case, we’ll work together with our social care colleagues to consider your needs and put a plan in place to support you outside of hospital.

Sometimes the best way to receive this support is to transfer you from the hospital to another care setting. This is where you will receive all the support you need to continue your recovery and gives us time to plan what support you need in place in the longer-term. We’ll consult with our social care colleagues to identify a setting for you based on your individual circumstances and the availability of care services at that time.

Delivering care in this way helps us make sure that we can provide hospital care and care in the community for everyone that needs it.

Being discharged home with support

If you are able to return directly to your home from hospital but need a little bit of extra support, we will work with you and where appropriate your family, friends, carers and our social care colleagues to provide you with the necessary home support. It is important to bear in mind the staffing pressures and service demands. Therefore we may need to provide alternative home support options to you.

You will also be given a contact telephone number so you, your family or carers can discuss any problems you may have managing at home. If we find you need more support, we’ll work together with our partners to put this in place where we can.

We know this is a lot of information, so please don’t hesitate to ask any questions you have about planning for your discharge with a member of the nursing team on your ward.